Harry P.

Slowly but surely...

You can also dab on a little spot of clear enamel and "glue" the parts with it...same way you would attach PE logos and scripts to the body.

Husband: New Shimmer is a floor wax! Wife: No, new Shimmer is a dessert topping! Husband: It's a floor wax! Wife: It's a dessert topping! Hey, hey, hey, calm down, you two. New Shimmer is both a floor wax and a dessert topping! Husband: Mmmmm, tastes terrific! Wife: And just look at that shine!

Once Future is dry, you can add decals over it. Water won't dissolve Future after it dries.

Future isn't a wax or a polish, it's actually clear acrylic. It's water based and safe over any type of paint. In fact I'm using it as a clearcoat on my current Pocher Alfa project. You can brush it on with a wide soft brush (it's pretty self-leveling), but I get better results and control by airbrushing it...straight from the bottle, no thinning needed. (It's already thin, about the consistency of skim milk). And I wouldn't use it on top of an already waxed finish.

A little progress... and yet another Pocher surprise. Check out the fine fit of the hood! Looks like I have a little re-engineering to do...

Ditto on good old Bondo, the same stuff Mark uses. It's cheap, readily available and works great. I see no reason to use anything more "exotic". All 2-part catalyzed putties are pretty much the same, and I don't think that Evercoat's premium price is justified by any appreciably better results, as far as model car work goes.

Bill, if there's anybody here that can create "Pocher-like" detail in 1/25 scale, it's you...as evidenced by the door latch mechanisms on your Turbine Car, and the rear hatch struts and hinges on your Magnum.

Nice clean foil work, very sharp!

It took a lot of re-engineering, but I finally have the door latches working. Here you can see the range of motion that the latch needs to have in order to operate: I had to enlarge the opening in the inner and outer door panels so that the latch could move far enough. The inner door panel interfered with the screw holding the latch pin in place, so I had to cut away a part of the panel in order to give the latch room to operate. I also had to make a hole in the panel to accomodate the nut holding the latch arm in place: Also, in order to get the latch mechanism to fit between the inner and outer door panels, I had to thin down the latch arm to about half of what it was, and cut the door handle shaft short...so it wouldn't extend past the inner panel. Other than all of the above...the door latches were a piece of cake!!! In the end you won't see the altered inner panel because the upholstery will cover it:

A little progress. It's far from perfect, but it'll do...

Now THAT'S a cool trick...I can't wait to try it.

Big problem last night. The Alfa has a remote oil tank located under the driver's side floorboard, and the filler neck protrudes through the right side running board. However, the filler tube and the hole in the running board were offset quite a bit. I thought about trying to pry off the oil tank and relocating it, but that would mean making new oil lines...not to mention the stress on the chassis as I tried to pry off the tank (it was epoxied into place). I was afraid I'd cause all sorts of "collateral damage", with bits and pieces of the chassis assembly breaking and flying off in all directions. So I decided to move the hole instead. I measured how far the hole had to move, and made the cuts shown here. Distance "A" is how far the hole had to move forward. Then I glued some sheet styrene under the cut out area, switched positions of the cut out pieces and glued them back in place onto the sheet styrene "backing". Now the hole lines up with the filler tube, but I have some delicate filling and sanding to do on the running board...

If only they had made it a 2-door...

Almost 900 separate parts (146 per wheel) and 13 hours later, and here's what you get: Now...to paint (would be prototypically correct) or not to paint (gee...they're so shiny! )

The body wasn't sitting quite right on the frame, because the gas filler neck and the corresponding hole in the body didn't line up. Since the gas tank was already permanently installed and couldn't easily be relocated, I moved the hole in the body instead. Sheet styrene patch from below... A little bondo from above, some sanding to contour the bondo to shape, and a cone-shaped grinding bit in my Dremel, and presto! Hole has magically moved to the correct location...

I've tried mocking up the front wheels on the axles, and actually the camber isn't too bad. The real cars had quite a bit, and this one has maybe a hair more than that, but still passable. At least the front wheels aren't at a crazy angle. Here, however, is a real rat's nest of problems: the doors. First of all it took about an hour of filing, sanding and reshaping to get the doors to fit correctly in the body openings. Now for more fun and games: The inner door panel is supposed to be held in place by 3 screws. The problem is that the inner panel is flat, while the outer door has a pronounced curve along the upper edge. No matter how tightly I turn down those 3 screws, the inner panel will stay flay. The fix: I removed the 3 screw bosses from the outer panel. I'll put a blob of epoxy on the outer panel, place the inner panel in position and squeeze it all together with a small C-clamp until the epoxy cures, forcing the inner panel to conform to the curve of the outer one. Another problem: when the door latch assembly is in place it won't fit between the inner and outer door panels. I'll have to shorten the latch arm A and thin down the latch B to get the whole works to fit. Then of course there's the problem of actually getting the little door catch pin to fit into the opening on the body... Also notice the groovy psychedelic swirl in the inner panel plastic. Oh well...that goes away when the panel gets upholstered.

Actually I managed to find most of the ones I dropped, but as it turns out there are about 30-40 extras! I guess Pocher figured that people would lose quite a few of them..

NASCAR for the street? I'd add a door if it was mine...

Now you need to do the Skyliner! What a great looking "set" those 2 would be on your display shelf...

I found several of them! I might have enough left over to build a model cow... Anyway..I got the body on the chassis to see how things line up. To my surprise the body fits! About the only real misalignment is that the gas filler isn't quite centered in the body's opening, which I'll take care of by reworking the opening a bit. Here's a shot of the reworked upper rear shock mount. I had to cut out part of the length and epoxy the rest back together to create a shorter arm, which in turn now allows the rear shocks to mount straight vertically. Mission accomplished! The body comes with the seat molded in place. I decided it would be a whole lot easier to upholster the seat if it was separate from the body...so after about a half hour of carefully scribing along the seat/body line with the backside of my x-acto blade here's what I have: This is how the kit should have been made in the first place!

Wow...the forum looks different every day so far! It's gonna be tough to keep up that pace...

I don't know if you're concerned with realism or not...but with that wheel/tire combo you couldn't turn and go over a bump at the same time without some serious interference from the wheel cutout.

Wow...great looking model. Your detailing looks terrific!

Here's what 3+ hours of building produced: What you're looking at here is comprised of 146 pieces. Each wheel is built by lacing each individual spoke. Each wheel has 3 layers of spokes, and each layer has a different spoke design and lacing pattern. Each spoke also has an individual nipple that must be installed with the correct end facing towards the wheel center! Here is an idea of the size of the spoke nipple... I'm not sure how many of these I dropped...but I do know that I recovered fewer than I dropped! I hope I don't run short by the time I get to wheel #6!